midfr0st was smoking a cigarette just below a DiMavia logo, yesterday he had scouted the area and reluctantly decided to set his plan to action.

Here they come, he thought as some employees were returning from lunch. His back was aching, the better part of yesterday he had spent to create the outfit he was now wearing. He had gone to a hardware store and bought some paint cans and working clothes. midfr0st had “aged” the clothes to his best effort by trashing them and splashing paint on them. He had been crouched on the floor for hours and was paying the price today. midfr0st threw his cigarette to the pavement and stepped on it just as the employees walked past him. He pulled down his baseball cap and followed them into the building, in his hands he had two buckets of paint and something that from the outside looked like a toolbox.

The receptionist looked up at the approaching crowd and smiled, her gaze swept by midfr0st. For a moment his heart skipped a beat, but she didn’t take any notice of him. A man held an rfid key above a sensor and a small gate swung open, the group walked through the gate. midfr0st was close to panic as he saw the gate beginning to close. He was about to turn around and leave when a woman looked over her shoulder straight at him. When she saw that he had both hands occupied, she held the gate for him to pass through.

“Thank you” he whispered as he walked by trying to avoid eye contact. midfr0st slowed down and allowed the group to walk away from him.

He wasn’t sure of where he was going, he just knew which side of the building he wanted to aim for. While walking around he mostly just tried to avoid people. It was hard to avoid everyone and soon he started to relax. I’m invicible, midfr0st realized as people was walking passed him seemingly without taking any notice at all.

Soon he saw an office door with a yellow post-it note, “On Conference Until Next Monday”. midfr0st walked into the office and shut the door behind him. He opened his toolbox and produced a wireless router, crawled under the desk and unplugged the Ethernet cable from the computer and connected it to a switch port on the router. He took another cable from his toolbox and connected it to the switch port and the computer, after connecting some power to the wireless device he placed it on the computer hoping no one would see the intruding object.

midfr0st left the room and headed for the exit. If they’re using some layer 2 NAC, the timeframe will be too short for this to work anyway and all I’ll have lost is a wireless router.

midfr0st sat on his balcony, digesting what he had overheard earlier that evening. The smoke filled his lungs and he was starting to get stiff from the cold. But that was of no concern to him. The music from his iPod just vaguely touched his mind.

He had gone over the plan in his head several times and after doing a quick risk analysis he knew it was a very dumb idea. Still, those security consultants were very stupid. In some strange way he didn’t feel he could reward that kind of idiotic behavior by not taking action.

Thomas and Hans had said they were handing over the security assessment report on Wednesday at 10:30 am, which gave midfr0st just under 80 hours until DiMavia would start addressing their security problems. From what he could tell the consultants had just installed a new firewall, and even if he didn’t hold those people in high esteem they might be monitoring the freshly installed box and it would be a bad idea to start pounding it. The time factor made social engineering the best approach, however, lack of information prompted a physical visit. The mere thought of it made midfr0st uncomfortable.

It intrigued him that he hardly found any information about the company on the web, aside from their website which claimed they offered some sort of financial services. He found a few people at LinkedIn who had worked there in the past.

Damn it’s cold, he thought and left the balcony. Compared to the restaurant his apartment looked like a total mess, there must be around twenty boxes here. midfr0st switched on the lights and suddenly was disgusted by all the dust, he missed the harmony from the restaurant where everything was so clean. Though he had enjoyed the music while dining, he picked up his Sonos controller, soon Satyricon was screaming through the speakers.

The cleaning will have to wait some more, midfr0st opened up OneNote and made a list. Tomorrow he would visit the DiMavia office and scout for cctv cameras, if he saw a single one he would back out. He almost hoped he would spot one, if he didn’t it would be time to go shopping.

Just sitting there enjoying the atmosphere made midfr0st question his life in solitude. The wine was probably the best he had ever tasted, the starter had been excellent and now he was waiting for the main course.

My office back home seems like a prison in comparison. He missed being out meeting people. midfr0st’s gaze swept through the restaurant, he couldn’t see any other table hosting a single guest; all of the other tables had at least two people around them. He tried to think of a single person he could have dined with. Aside from the girl next door he came up blank. The realization made him order another bottle.

As he was sitting in all the chatter from the surrounding guests, he heard it clearly, just as if someone had shouted his name.

“vpn”

He almost dropped his glass, the online world came rushing back.

“nat traversal”

Who is speaking?, quickly he tried to focus on the conversation and shut off the other noise.

“Install a Blue Coat. Before we came along they didn’t even have a security policy.”

It’s the two guys just next to me!

midfr0st tried to concentrate on the conversation, he realized he was a bit drunk.
“Here’s to DiMavia” one of the guys raised his glass, “I mean, they paid for this.” They both laughed.
midfr0st’s food had started to get cold, he was entirely captivated by the conversation. Time after time the one named Thomas did his impression of what midfr0st assumed was their client.
“Money is not a problem”. They would always share a toast after this comment.

“Would you like some dessert,” the waitress asked. Midfr0st looked up at her, stunned.
“No, thank you but I’m not done with my meat,” he grabbed the fork again, “it tastes great.” He put down the fork again when she walked away. He wished he had something to take notes on.

“But the best part was that girl in finance,” the guy named Hans said.
“She was quite a looker, wasn’t she!” Thomas made a gesture indicating large breasts.
“Yeah, that too, but do you know what she used for password for their economy system?”
“Some cat?” Thomas guessed.
“The subject name of her certificate!”
“Well, you know how it is with the bean counters.” They both laughed.

midfr0st just smiled, drank some more wine and tried to remember as much as possible of the conversation he had overheard.

“Sorry for the delay” the girl smiled at him, “It’s been busy around here lately.”
“Oh, don’t worry.” midfr0st hoped he didn’t sound too annoyed. Feels like I’ve been waiting since bloody Christmas, I hope it’s worth it.

“Do you have a reservation?” The girl asked.
“Yes it’s that one,” midfr0st said and pointed at a line in her notebook. He felt uneasy with his name printed in plain view like that. Stop being so freaking paranoid, he thought, hoping his chills were from the weather outside instead of a product from his demons.
“Will you be dining alone?” midfr0st removed his finger from her reservations list.
“Just me, but you’re welcome to join me.”
Her smile grew a bit, “your table will be ready shortly.”
“The bar it is then.”
“That way sir,” she said pointing in the direction of the bar.
“Thanks!”

The place was fairly crowded so there was a buzz of chatter blended in with some classical music.
“What can I get for you sir?” the man behind the bar asked.
“Red wine, I’ll have that bottle,” midfr0st said pointing to a brand he knew of.
“Excellent choice,” the bartender poured him a drink.
You would have said that regardless of what I drank, midfr0st thought.
After his second glass his table was ready.
“I´ll just bring the bottle if that’s alright?” midfr0st asked not really waiting for the answer. They seated him in the corner of the room where he had a full view of the restaurant. He smiled; it was the table he would have chosen for himself. No one would be able to sneak up on him from behind. If I don’t get too drunk that is.
midfr0st was flipping through the menu trying to figure out what language the meals were written in. At the table next to his a waiter was explaining to two men what they had ordered and how the meals had been prepared. I wonder if that was the French word for road kill?

Soon a waiter was ready to take midfr0st’s order.
“I’ll have number fourteen as a starter and number thirty seven as my main course.”
“Ah, the foie gras and the steak, wonderful. Have you decided on a dessert?”
“I’ll see if I want one later.”
“And what would you like to drink to that?” she asked, midfr0st caught her looking at the empty bottle.
“What can you recommend?” midfr0st asked.
“That’s not really my area of expertise, wait a second and I’ll fetch our wine expert.”

The waiter ran off and a few minutes later a short guy came rushing to midfr0st’s table.
“Good evening, sir” he saluted and opened their wine list.
“What price range were you aiming for?” he asked glancing at the bottle on the table.
“Well if the wine is older than me it’s probably too expensive,” midfr0st confessed.
The man launched into a wild discussion, mostly with himself, about the different wines the restaurant had to offer. It sounded like he had an intimate relationship with the lot of them. In the end midfr0st didn’t really know what it was he had ordered, just that he had probably never paid that much for a bottle of wine before.
I should have a sommelier when I live in a mansion, midfr0st mused watching the guy walking away from his table. But mine won’t be gay as a meatball.

It was getting cold on his balcony. The leaves were falling from the trees and his neighbors had stopped having barbeques down below him. But midfr0st endured and defied the cold; he enjoyed his cigarettes too much and didn’t want to smoke them indoors. That environment was bad enough for his computers as it was, he didn’t want to make it worse.

The last few months had been fiercely busy for midfr0st, he hadn’t had any time to relax or really think about his situation. His current projects were done and he was left with a feeling of boredom. He wanted to be productive but his brain couldn’t handle anything besides smoke and music.

Eleanor Rigby was playing in the background; midfr0st thought Pain’s version was much more powerful than the original. He watched a couple walking, hand in hand away from his apartment complex. It’s better to eat porridge together than to eat pork alone. He didn’t remember where the saying came from but it had stuck to his mind.

When his cigarette was all but gone he left the balcony. His apartment was quiet as the grave. All the computers were off and midfr0st realized he wasn’t used to the utter silence. I bet the neighbors’ dog starts off soon though, he thought. Walking by his array of computers he wondered where the itch to turn them on had gone, usually he had millions of things to check. Instead he walked over to check his cupboard for a bottle of wine. Empty? midfr0st didn’t remember taking the last bottle; realizing he didn’t have any wine made him want it even more.

Sure he had plenty of beer and whiskey but what he wanted was a little something called Syrah, someone needs to take care of the logistics here.

Cooking up a meal just didn’t appeal to him without a bottle of red. Briefly he thought of pizza but that would only take care of his hunger, which was a secondary problem.

His plan had been to live as a hermit to avoid being seen by the outside world. He didn’t want to draw any kind of attention to his person and had sworn to follow that plan. midfr0st hadn’t eaten out in well over two years; he had hardly met “real” people during that time. Screw the plan, he thought, or that part of the plan anyway. His cravings overcame his earlier planning.

But where should I go? He asked himself, being out of the grid for so long meant he had no idea where any decent restaurants were located. Google Local didn’t work since that service wasn’t activated in his region. After booting up a computer and doing some searching he found a local search engine for restaurants.

After making the reservation he chose a blue suit from his wardrobe and phoned a taxi. He thought about the pretty girl he had been eyeing and exchanging hi’s with, it would have been nice to buy her dinner and actually talk to someone for a change. I think her name is Jenny… But midfr0st didn’t want to stray that far from the plan.

[tags]security, stories, fiction[/tags]